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First aircraft to be made in the United Arab Emirates

20 November 2017

Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform was used to develop a military light attack aircraft with multirole capabilities, the first developed in the United Arab Emirates.

The 3DEXPERIENCE platform enabled Calidus’, an Abu Dhabi-based advanced technology company, teams to virtually design, develop and optimise two prototypes within a two-year timeframe in order to unveil the aircraft at the Dubai Air Show 2017. Its single source of data and integrated applications accelerated Calidus’ design process and streamlined the company’s project collaboration both internally and externally with its suppliers.

“We designed our first aircraft through the 3DEXPERIENCE platform from Dassault Systèmes, whose legacy in the industry was a major factor when the time came to choose what solution we would use for the project,” said Hamdan AlShkeili, Chief Software Engineer, Calidus. “The 3DEXPERIENCE platform enabled our teams in Abu Dhabi and Brazil to work together throughout the design process to get the aircraft’s components right from the start. We successfully demonstrated that, with the right technologies, we could deliver in an industry having the highest technological standards.”

“In 2015, Calidus set out to create a highly complex technological product and achieved its ambition on time by relying on a holistic digital approach to innovation,” said Philippe Forestier, Executive Vice President, Global Affairs and Communities, Dassault Systèmes. “This achievement reinforces the 3DEXPERIENCE platform’s role in connecting people, ideas and data throughout a company’s value chain and across all disciplines, as well as Dassault Systèmes’ position as the technology partner of reference to the aerospace and defence industry.”

The end-to-end development of the first such aircraft in the UAE is the latest in a long list of aerospace and defence industry milestones made possible by Dassault Systèmes during the past 35 years - from the first digitally developed aircraft, to the first solar-powered aircraft to fly around the world without fuel, to the transformation of the manufacturing value-adding chain into a value creation chain. Dassault Systèmes collaborates with companies of all sizes to harness the strategic advantages that the virtual world brings and push the limits of innovation.